


Confessions

by elldotsee



Series: Anniversary Ficlets 2020 [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence - The Empty Hearse, Discussion of feelings, Love Confessions, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, YAY THEYRE TALKING ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS, emotional hurt comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25176415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elldotsee/pseuds/elldotsee
Summary: John has something to confess. Once he starts, he can't seem to stop, but Sherlock can't make heads or tails of it. Finally, he tells John the whole story of what happened when he was gone for two years.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Anniversary Ficlets 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807645
Comments: 34
Kudos: 132
Collections: 10 Years of Sherlock





	Confessions

“I didn’t take any cabs when you were d— um... gone.”

Sherlock slides his eyes up from his phone but doesn’t answer, sensing that this rather abrupt declaration has more to it. John isn’t looking at him, but in the direction of the unlit fireplace, staring intensely. His forehead is creased, his mouth downturned. 

“I rode the Tube or I walked. Even picked up a secondhand bike and rode that to work for a bit, though it chafed like mad.”

“I saw you everywhere at first. Flashes of dark hair. Whiffs of your brand of cigarette smoke. Long coats with the collars turned up.”

John looks at him now, the briefest flare of anger in his blue eyes. Sherlock shifts, sitting up straighter, setting his mobile on the floor. Though it’s been a few days since his arrival back on British soil, since Bonfire night, and their reunion, they’ve yet to have the conversation that’s due. It’s not that Sherlock’s been avoiding telling him about the reasons he had for leaving; on the contrary, he needs John to understand that it was not by choice, but necessity. But their days have been filled with the mundane - cleaning the flat that’s gone largely disused for two years (Mycroft kept Mrs Hudson in the black with a handsome rent hold), tending to their individual injuries (Sherlock hasn’t revealed his to John yet - he’s not sure that’s a story worth telling) and collecting John’s few belongings from the bedsit he’s temporarily occupied in Bexley. Sherlock shifts again, wanting to fidget, feeling tight and uncomfortable with this impending conversation. But he stays. He slides his hands beneath his thighs to keep them from moving, to keep himself from picking up his mobile. They’re doing this. 

“It could've been, I guess. Some of those could've been you, yeah? Since you weren’t really—” John clears his throat. Even now, with Sherlock sitting not a metre away, John is still finding it difficult to refer to when he was deceased. He clears his throat a second time and then stands abruptly, disappearing into the kitchen. There’s the sound of clanging, of a pot being set down, the fridge opening and closing, the faucet running. Then silence. 

After a few moments, Sherlock stands gingerly, the cuts on his back pulling tight, and makes his way to the kitchen. 

“John?” 

The kitchen is empty. He stands and listens for a moment, finally hearing footsteps a floor above, in John’s room. Feeling off-kilter, he looks around for something to do, a task to keep himself occupied. The kitchen is cleaner than it’s ever been. His lab equipment is still packed away in boxes, stacked neatly in the corner. He feels an odd pang each time he walks through the kitchen and sees the boxes with their labels written in Mrs Hudson’s shaky script. It never occurred to him that they would do that, that people would take care of things in his wake. He’d not given it much thought, but assumed Mycroft would handle everything. He wonders what else John and Mrs Hudson handled. Was Molly involved? Was it difficult for her to keep the secret? He hates himself in that moment, in a new way. Hates what he’s done to the people he loves, hates Moriarty for making him do it. 

John coughs upstairs, a lingering effect of the fire. It reminds Sherlock of his own less-than-stellar current health and he walks to the loo, finding the prescription bottle tucked away in the back of the cabinet, hopefully out of sight from John. He swallows his dose and collects John’s antibiotic before walking back to the kitchen for a glass of water. There’s a bag of boiled sweets on the worktop that they’d picked up at Boots yesterday to help ease the irritation in his throat. He flicks on the kettle and finds a tray, loading up the items. To it he adds a small pot of honey he finds shoved way to the back of a cupboard and a spoon. John isn’t crazy about honey in his tea, but it will soothe his throat. The kettle clicks and Sherlock pours the hot water into two mugs, plunking a bag into each and settling them carefully on the tray. He looks it over and decides to leave his own mug in the kitchen. John deserves his privacy. He certainly doesn’t need his flatmate (Sherlock doesn’t know if he can still be considered anything more than that at this point) barging in and demanding to have tea time together. 

He carries the tray carefully to the stairs, so lost in thought that he’s startled to find John already descending them. 

“Sherlock? Did you… need something? What’s this?” 

Sherlock holds up the tray needlessly. “Your medicine. I uh… was in the loo and saw the bottle, so I thought I’d bring it to you. And some tea with honey. For your throat.” 

“Oh. That’s… thoughtful. Right. Thanks. I’m just coming down to ask about dinner actually. Not much in. Maybe a pasta? Or we could do a takeaway. Just like…” 

John presses his lips together and Sherlock tilts his head. His arms are starting to shake with the small effort of holding the tray still.  _ Just like old times. _ He’s certain that’s what John was about to say. Why’d he change his mind? Is it because it’s not like it was before? It can’t be, can it? Sherlock suddenly sees the timeline of their life together, with a large black line bisecting the line, the halves labelled BEFORE and AFTER. His chest aches with the thought and he shakes his head. Is this… is this it? Are they still not going to discuss anything? Maybe John’s waiting for him to take the next step. He struggles to remember (and that’s a first) what the last thing was that John said to him before he went upstairs. 

“John…”

John tilts his head, subconsciously mirroring Sherlock, but there’s nothing else that Sherlock can think to say. He’s certainly not going to have this very important discussion on the stairs. Thankfully John saves him from his inarticulate nonsense — he does that often, Sherlock knows he should be far more grateful for that — by taking the tray from him and descending the rest of the stairs, heading for the sitting room. 

“Takeaway I think. I’ll just take this before my tea goes cold. Angelo’s? Or should we do Indian?” 

Sherlock recovers, straightening his spine and heading for the kitchen. 

“Angelo’s sounds good. I’ll call.” 

* * *

They don’t discuss anything of importance that night, eating takeaway in front of the telly, watching some mindless program. They sit close together, and Sherlock aches to touch him, to hold his hand or feel the roughness of John’s stubble beneath his palm again. But it doesn't feel right yet and Sherlock is certain that it won’t until he tells John what he needs to hear — that the last two years were nearly unbearable for him, too. That he loves him, and that he only became more certain of that fact with each excruciating day that they spent apart.

A few days later, they’re at the breakfast table, John reading through the mail and Sherlock on his laptop. He’s not doing much, piddling around on the internet, chasing queries as they pop into his brain, reading a backlog of crime news.

John clears his throat, not looking up from the bill he’s holding. Sherlock wonders if it’s one that’s past due. Not that he can be blamed for that. He was  _ dead. _ The word still feels weird in his head and he winces internally. 

“I spoke to you.” 

Sherlock looks up apologetically. He’s been having trouble focussing lately, losing the plot of his own thoughts much more often than he used to. Missing things people have said to him. Finding himself standing in rooms without any recollection of why he went there. 

“Sorry. I didn’t hear you.” 

John is silent for a moment and Sherlock wonders if he missed something really important. He tries to rewind the morning in his head — he’s only been out of bed just over an hour — but comes up blank. They’d had a light breakfast of toast. Skipped the coffee. John had disappeared into the loo for a bit and now… here they are.

“No…” He says eventually. It’s quiet. Thoughtful. Laden with something. Sherlock waits. John seems upset and Sherlock needs to know what he did to make him frown like that. “No, you wouldn’t have, would you? Cuz I wasn’t really talking to you. Just a rock. A slab of marble. But it helped. It really… helped.” 

With a jolt, Sherlock realises what John is telling him. John isn’t talking about some mundane conversation about the weather, or a request to take the bins out that Sherlock didn’t hear. He’s talking about speaking to Sherlock… when Sherlock was  _ dead _ . John visited his grave and spoke to him and it helped. 

“Oh.” Is all Sherlock manages to say. There doesn’t seem to be anything else  _ to _ say. John nods once and goes back to the mail, setting down the one in his hand and picking up another, tearing it open with the letter opener. Sherlock watches him, studies him. It’s strange, hearing about this John that he never really knew, this John that spoke to gravestones and refused to ride in cabs. This John that was created when Sherlock jumped. This John is his fault. 

* * *

John is at work a few days after that and Sherlock is home, feeling frustrated and fidgety. He’s trying to work out who it was that kidnapped John and is coming up short. No matter how hard he tries, it seems that he just can’t seem to stop putting John’s life in danger. He’d thought mistakenly that once he’d taken care of Moriarty, of the vast network of criminals that answered to Moriarty, both as a person and as an idea, that all of his problems would be solved. 

How  _ foolish.  _

With a disgruntled huff, he scrubs his hands over his face, twisting them in his hair. He hasn’t been sleeping well, has been in pain both mentally and physically, tossing and turning until he falls asleep, only to sleep in fits and starts. Images from his memories meld with scenarios his mind conjures up, mostly involving a very sad John. 

Stomping to the kitchen, he flicks on the kettle, more for something to do than because he actually wants any tea. The boxes of equipment mock him from the corner. He lifts the first one, but it’s heavy, much too heavy for his back to handle right now. It goes back down with a thump, the glass inside rattling loudly. 

He really needs to tell John. 

The thought echoes around his brain for the remainder of the afternoon and he’s restless, too restless to focus on much of anything. He manages to unpack the contents of two of the boxes, putting his chemistry equipment away neatly at first, but with increasingly less care for where the beakers and flasks end up. 

When John arrives home, Sherlock forces himself not to pounce on him the second he makes it through the door. John enters, smelling of rain and antiseptic, the shoulders of his jacket damp. Sherlock watches him surreptitiously from the kitchen table, pretending to fiddle with his microscope. He’s still got the hunch to his shoulders and a slight limp when he’s tired, though not near enough to warrant his cane again. Sherlock wonders briefly if John had needed it while he was gone, but shoves that thought away quickly. He’d probably prefer not to know. 

“Just started to rain as I got off the Tube. Bloody lucky timing.” He slides his jacket off, shakes out his hair. He’s wearing a shirt that Sherlock’s never seen before. It’s green and yellow plaid and ill-fitting on John’s frame, despite clearly being new. Sherlock hates it. “Think I’ll take a shower, get the filth off me and then I thought we could— oh!” John sniffs, popping his head round the corner and finding Sherlock at the table. He smiles and it nearly reaches his tired eyes. Sherlock feels like crying. “Did you cook? It smells good.” 

Sherlock nods, standing and bending over his microscope to hide his face. Once the sudden emotions have ceased, he waves a hand casually at John, turning to the hob to swipe a spoon through the pasta. 

“Just a quick pasta. Nothing special. I can keep it warm if you want to…” 

“No, this is great. Really. Great.” John smiles at him again and this time it’s warm and genuine. “We can eat now.” 

John crosses behind Sherlock and reaches to get the plates. He hands them over one at a time, holding it while Sherlock heaps the noodles and sauce on, then carrying them both to the table. He pauses, surveying the few pieces of equipment spread out. Sherlock is just about to suggest they take their dinner to the sitting room, even though there is still plenty of space for them to eat here, when John speaks. It’s so quiet, Sherlock nearly misses it. 

“I helped Mrs Hudson pack all of this up. After your funeral. We planned to donate it to some schools or science clubs but we… I guess we never got around to it. I didn’t come back here after that. Not—” Sherlock freezes and hears John swallow. “I crashed with Greg for a bit until I got my own place. Except for one night. I didn’t… it was what you’d call a danger night. Greg was gone, at work I think probably, and I just… couldn’t cope. I couldn’t always cope. I started walking and I eventually ended up here. I startled poor Mrs Hudson. She was so kind.” John sniffs and Sherlock sees his shoulders straighten, his head come up. He clears his throat and when he speaks again, his voice has lost the hushed, reverent quality and is back to normal. He pulls out a chair, then sits and picks up his fork. “Let’s eat. I’m starved.” 

Feeling whiplashed yet again, Sherlock turns to the fridge and collects some bottled water before joining John at the table. He watches John out of the corner of his eye as he drags his fork around his own noodles, his appetite gone. He feels wretched. He feels wrong-footed and strung-out and confused. 

He can’t quite work out why John keeps telling him all of these things. It’s like he feels the need to confess, but why? Does he mean to hurt Sherlock? Remind him how terrible he was to leave him alone and in the dark? 

The words are coming out of his mouth before he’s even thought through what he’s going to say.

“John. There’s something. I need to say. To tell you. Quite a lot of somethings, actually, but one particularly big something. In particular.” He inhales sharply and shakes his head. He’s botching it up. He needs to stop, collect his thoughts, and do this correctly. John is looking at him with concern, his fork halfway to his mouth. His eyebrows knit together as he sets his fork back down on his plate. Sherlock leans forward and steeples his fingers, pressing the pads firmly together to keep them from shaking.

“When I jumped, please believe me that it was the only choice I had. The last choice. Moriarty had snipers trained on you and if they didn’t see me jump, you’d die. Not just you, but Mrs Hudson and Greg too. Maybe others. Actually jumping was supposed to be my backup plan. I thought I was clever, had worked out a plan to get out of it. But then Moriarty shot himself before I could use my plan. There was no way to call off the snipers, no way for me to get down unless I jumped. I never expected you to actually see it. I staged the paramedic call so you wouldn’t have to, but you came back too quickly. Mycroft even had a bicyclist knock you down in an attempt to keep you away.” 

John stands and for a moment, Sherlock is afraid he’s going to punch him, or worse,  _ leave _ . But he just holds onto the back of the chair with his head hanging down, breathing in deeply and slowly. Finally he looks up, his eyes rimmed in red, and nods sharply. Sherlock continues. 

“Mycroft was afraid you’d say something. It had to look authentic. No, it had to  _ be _ authentic.” He realises how callous it must sound, fabricating grief like that, so he tries for a bit of lightheartedness. “I’ve seen you play poker, John, you’re a terrible actor.” 

“No.” John’s fingers tighten on the back of the chair. “No you—” He inhales sharply. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to… to make  _ jokes _ . For two years—” Swallow. “ _ Two bloody years _ , you let me grieve. I  _ grieved _ . All the stages of grief, the ones that no one thinks about, that no one thinks they’ll be subjected to… I went through them all. I got pissed every night. I stormed Mycroft’s office. I was put on  _ professional leave _ and nearly lost my license. I was NOT OKAY.” The words explode out of John and he’s left breathing hard through his nose, his eyes narrowing. Sherlock feels the pain radiating from him as though it’s a palpable thing, a wave of fury. He swallows. 

“John…” 

But that’s it. That’s all he can say. There’s nothing that can fix this. Nothing that can ease those two years for John. He can apologise — he  _ will _ apologise, he owes it to John — but he can’t take away the pain that he caused. If he’d known, before he left, if only he’d know what it would do to John… 

_ You did know.  _ A tiny voice in the back of his head reminds him. Yes, he knew. He knows now and he knew it then, but it wouldn’t have changed anything. It couldn't have changed anything because knowing that John cares about him, possibly nearly as much as he cares for John, would have only been  _ more _ dangerous for John. And he thinks it would’ve broken him, broken them both, to have had those feelings confirmed before he left. He may not have been able to go through with it and then they both would’ve died. 

_ Say something.  _

“Every cup of tea I drank reminded me of you. I compared each to the ones you made me, and none ever compared. Cabs reminded me of you, even when they didn’t resemble London cabs at all. Ridiculous and hideous jumpers, especially cable knit ones. Every time I heard a gunshot, and I heard  _ a lot _ , my first instinct was to ensure your safety. Ashtrays. Cans of beer, even if they weren’t your favourite brand. The newspaper. My own face, whenever I caught a glimpse in a window or mirror because of the scar on my lip.” He points to it, feels it wobble a bit. “That case with the fishermen, remember? The hook caught me as you tackled him.” He hears a quick exhale from John that might have been a laugh, but he can’t bring himself to look at him. Not yet. Sherlock stares down at his plate, at the now cold noodles and watery sauce. 

“I grieved what I’d had to leave. I hoped every day that I’d be…” His voice cracks. He clears his throat and continues. “That I’d be strong enough. Fast enough. Clever enough to stay one step ahead. There were some days I didn’t want to, many days I didn't think I could go on, but then I’d think of you and I… and I did. You still told me I was brilliant when I spewed out my ridiculous logic. The you in my head did at least.” 

He pulls in a shaky breath. His heart is beating practically out of his chest. “I did all of it for you John, because I love you. I can’t imagine life without you in it. I couldn’t imagine a world without John Watson and I knew that if I failed, there was a very real chance that you’d be taken from this world and I couldn’t let that happen. I worked as fast as I could but then in Serbia… they caught me. I was held and—” 

He reaches for his bottle of water, uncaps it, and takes a large swallow. “Tortured. Mycroft sent in his men, but thankfully I had managed to weasel my way mostly out by deducing the main guard. Mycroft became a recovery mission, rather than a rescue mission. He’s still waiting for me to thank him.” Sherlock manages a tiny smile but John isn't looking at him. He's staring down at his hands where they're still clenched around the back of the chair. His knuckles are white.

“I’m sorry, John. If there had been any other way, and trust me, I must’ve replayed every scenario over the last two years, I would have done it. I would have brought you with me. I wouldn’t have ever left. I would have written you or called… but it wasn’t safe. It’s still not safe! I’m a magnet for danger and it’s fine for me, I’m used to it. They can kidnap me or torture me or taunt me or whatever they want, but I loathe the thought of them hurting you any more!” 

John holds his hand up. 

“It’s not fine for me.” 

Sherlock hangs his head. He knew this was likely, that John wouldn’t want anything to do with him once he knew all of this. Once his life was in danger again. Still. But it still hurts, the idea of losing John again now that he’s only just got him back. He’s startled by a hand on his shoulder and then a palm to his cheek. 

“No, Sherlock, it’s not fine for me that people hurt you either. It’s not fine for you to go off and try and do it alone, not anymore. We’re a team. I had no idea… about any of this. I know that was the point but I just… I wish I’d known. I can’t undo what’s happened the last two years. Obviously a lot of the grief has eased because you’re not really dead, you’re here and I’m touching you. But the pain that I — we— endured the last two years was real. It happened and the only way to move past it, I think, is to acknowledge that it happened and that it was awful. For both of us.” He tips his chin down, pressing gently against Sherlock’s cheek to try and catch his gaze. Sherlock complies, needing to see the look on John’s face, to see if what he’s saying is really true. He can scarcely believe his ears. This is so much more than he could've ever hoped for. 

“I forgive you. I understand now. Thank you… for everything. And Sherlock?” John’s eyes soften and Sherlock wonders what his own face is doing. He hums because he doesn’t trust his voice anymore. “I love you too. That’s… I think that’s why… I mean, would’ve been sad if it was... different. Either way, I would’ve lost… a friend. But the thought that you didn’t know, I thought you maybe didn’t know how much I love you, have always loved you… that thought kept me up at night. I wondered over and over if you had known… if maybe it would’ve changed things. Kept you alive.” 

The admission is tough for John, Sherlock can see that plain as day, so he does the only thing he can think to do — no more words, they’ve used up all the words they need for now. He gets to his feet and wraps his arms around John. Just like the night he returned, it feels perfectly right, as though his arms were always meant to hold John just like this. After a split second, John’s arms slide around his waist and squeeze gingerly. His head settles against Sherlock’s shoulder and Sherlock rests his cheek on John’s forehead. It's perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> I drive this ship now. *Honk Honkkkkk* Get out the way, Mofftiss.


End file.
